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Sunday, 4 September 2016

Mental Health still struggling

The other day, we heard that millions of pounds was being poured into the London Police services, to protect us from security risks.

Later that very day in London, a lady was murdered and other people were badly injured, by someone who appears to be struggling with mental health issues.

This sadly is not the first murder involving someone with mental health issues in the last few months, but no one takes any notice.

Had it have been someone acting as a terrorist, the government would have thrown a lot of money and resources at it.

Before the European vote took place, the Government pledged to invest millions of pounds more into the mental health services, but one has to ask where it's all gone and where are the improvements

For some odd reason this money seems to have disappeared into the NHS and never got to the right place.

To me this is the governments fault, because when it puts money into a service, the money is never ring fenced to prevent it bring used for something else

We saw this with the National Dementia Strategy, when money was put aside for dementia, but the then Government refused to ring fence the money, and it was then used to pay for other services, yet no one was held accountable.

Mental health has been a very poor relation for many years. In fact ever since the mental Heath hospitals were closed down in the 1960s, yet nothing has improved

Yet when we look at mental Heath, it involves many Illnesses. There is depression in a lot of other illnesses, but all the doctors are interested in doing is dishing out anti depressants, many of which do more harm than good.

But mental health goes a lot deeper than politicians care to admit these days.

One or two Politicians have openly admitted to having mental health issues, only to be vilified by other politicians, and that shows the contempt they have for mental Heath these days.

I think a lot if the problems are caused by the stigma which is attached to mental health issues, because for years no one would admit they, or anyone in their family had mental health problems.

In many ways it was like cancer in the 1950-60s, and dementia now.

But people are starting to admit to their illnesses more, and talk to others about them, instead of hiding them. I think it's helped by the high profile people like Actors, Politicians and Athletes, who are openly talking about mental health.

Here again it's a subject which could be discussed in schools, so that youngsters get to know about it and understand what it is.

Yes there are still one or mental health hospitals in existence but these are few and far between.

This means that it takes longer to access the system, and then they and family members have to travel many miles when it comes to visiting.

To me it stands to reason that if the mental health services were improved, people with these issues would be picked up faster, saving the government a lot of money.

The only way all health problems can be addressed is to start revamping the NHS, and taking back control of it rather than allowing private companies etc, to take over many if the best services.

Mental health has always been around like dementia, but these illnesses have never been given the priority or the resources that they require.

I also feel that people were better served when hospitals worked under the older system, where they were run by doctors and nurses etc, rather than business bosses, because like it or not a hospital cannot be run like a business. If a hospital got into problems those in charge took the blame, and never blamed others.

In those days each hospital was part of a group and shared their services including mental health, so in many cases, the NHS was a much better place, as it was run by people with medical experience rather than some cost cutting chief executive, who has little interest in an efficient hospital.

If the hospital fails they are always protected and blame everyone else.

In this day and age we hear that a patients records can be shared around the local hospitals, but in all honesty, that is total rubbish. Because it's not the first time I have gone to a hospital to find that they were unable to access my records. So after the millions of pounds poured into this service to speed it up, it's a total failure

In all honestly I do feel that these days, the NHS is too top heavy with admin staff, and this now needs to be addressed so that the money goes where it's needed, and that is on patient services, not on meetings for people in big office blocks who keep reinventing the wheel, and certainly not on chief executives who look after them selves and no one else.

Let us hope that mental health starts to get the money it really needs in the future, so that those in real need are picked up and given the treatment they deserve.

Whether we like it or not mental health is not self inflicted like some illnesses, and therefore it should be given more resources and support

I do admit that a lot of these services have been lost by the savage government, over the last ten years, but hopefully this will soon be readdressed.